


Seasons Move On

by C_D_Wofford



Category: Hemlock Grove
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Falling In Love, Friendship/Love, Healing, Loss, Moving On, Second Chances, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2020-05-14 12:02:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19272901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C_D_Wofford/pseuds/C_D_Wofford
Summary: Roman lost everything he loved -even everything he ever knew- in one fell swoop. Letha dead, Peter gone, Shelley missing, Norman a shell, Mother murdered. The winter sets in, and with it, the cold and darkness of an empty soul. But seasons change, and wounds can heal. That's the beauty of hope; it survives the bitterest frost.She's a cute college girl with rings on all her fingers and a sassy pixie cut. She teaches piano, chain-smokes, packs one heck of a punch, and as it turns out, she's kind of handy working under the hood of classic muscle cars. And maybe that green dye in her hair is a hint at the coming Spring.





	1. Autumn Falls

**Author's Note:**

> Set in an AU somewhere between seasons one and two, where both Letha and her child died during the birth, Peter has skipped town, and Roman is completely on his own dealing with the aftermath.

Letha Godfrey  
Beloved Daughter, Shining Star, Precious Flower  
Never forgotten, Always loved  
Born April 20, 1996 - Departed September 12, 2013  
~Cito Sublatus~

Latin. Of course Uncle Norman had chosen to put Latin on the inscription. How very like him to seek comfort in the academic. But it wasn't romantic. It wasn't somehow more meaningful. It wasn't even beautiful. They were just stupid, empty words. Pathetic. 

The cold damp of the fresh earth seeped through the knees of seventy-two thousand dollars' worth of Italian fabric. Letha must be freezing. An image of her pale face in the dark rose before his mind unbidden. A scalding tear streaked from Roman's eye and sank into the red earth, as if in an attempt to warm it. To warm her. A broken, whispered curse fell from trembling lips, pushed too hard to escape from between clenched teeth. But when more tears came, he didn't try to stop it. He didn't know how. He didn't know if he should.

His shoulders shook, strangled sounds of anguish coloring the quiet as he reached out and traced her name with a trembling hand. Not the flowery epithets. Not the pointless Latin. Just her name. Her name that sounded like smiles and looked like a dance. That used to mean a beautiful heart and a living joy. That now meant...this. This stone. This red dirt. This lonely cemetery. This gaping, yawning hole, sucking everything inexorably into the abyss and threatened to take Roman himself. 

The beautiful, crisp Autumn air, tinted slightly with a pleasant hint of wood-smoke and the colors of the sun; this was an island. The rest of the world had already fallen away. The brittle, colored leaves were already falling from the trees, twirling through the breeze in a hopeful façade of life and vivacity even while their existence gave testament to the retreat of life from the coming bitter frost. Fading. It was all the twilight, the last glimmers of a world that knew Letha’s voice before the night came on. 

“She loved afternoons like this.” 

Roman jumped at the words spoken just behind him. Norman stood there, hands in his pockets, slumped wearily. His face was haggard, hair disheveled. A deflated scarecrow in the autumn sunset. A straw man. Roman scrubbed a hand across his face, gouging the tears from his eyes with the heel of his hand and not caring that the tears only wet his cheeks as he stood, backing up a step from the headstone. 

“Yeah? What kind of afternoons? The kind where you bury your best friend? Oh yeah, those are the best,” he said, the words harsh but his voice cut jagged and shattered with pain. Norman didn’t seem to hear him, his lifeless eyes fixed on his daughter’s tomb as he went on, his voice dreamlike. 

“She used to dance with the leaves. Her freshman year-“

Roman had been fighting to stand still, but at the words he abruptly turned and walked away, his quick, desperate steps taking him out of the cemetery, toward the tree-line. His mind was a whirling fog of panic, but his feet knew to carry him away. He couldn’t stay, not here. As the beams of autumn sunlight changed to the dappled shades of the wood, he heard Norman’s voice fading behind him, still going on at the grave. 

“Cito sublatus…taken too soon.”

The wind picked up, whispering sorrowfully through the limbs of the ancient trees and building to an anguished moaning keen. Roman’s pace had slowed some time ago; he wasn’t certain how long he had been staggering through the wood, but it hardly mattered. The golden afternoon had given way to dusk, the yellow light now grey and purple to herald the falling of night. Roman’s breath like smoke in the chill reminded him of the gnawing in the pit of his stomach; a cigarette never helped when he was feeling this. Not even one of his more exclusive, less legal blends. But it would be a relief to do something with his hands. 

Something caught his foot and he would have tumbled into the earthy forest debris if something wide and canvas hadn’t broken his fall. He lay still for a moment, weight supported by the hammock he’d landed across. Even without clear vision and in the gathering darkness he knew where his feet had carried him. This was Peter’s hammock. Peter’s house. Or rather, the shell of it. Now the pain was laced with anger. Fury. Adding a fiery poison edge to the icy knife already twisted in his beating heart. 

A scream rent the air, made the forest fall silent around him in fearful awe, watching in stony reverence as the dam broke. He tore down the hammock, knocked over the old rotting recliner out front. The dark shape of the Rumancek trailer yawned sadly before him, almost frightening in the dark, repeating the hollow promise of a friend who had already flown. Roman rushed it, the red haze of his vision making him look like the madness he felt inside. The door was smashed from its hinges, and he tumbled wildly through, intending to destroy what he once thought of as a second home. A safe place. But someone had already destroyed it for him. 

The red graffiti streaking down the walls in foul insults and death threats, the trash, beer cans, the holes knocked in the walls. He froze, a little unsteady on his feet, as his vision adjusted to the deeper black inside, catching a glimpse of the ruin and abuse the little trailer had endured at the hand of cruel, ignorant teens. His strength ebbed away as suddenly as it had risen up, and he leaned hard against the doorframe for a moment, his breath leaving him. He slowly walked a few steps into the garbage-strewn floor of what was once the Rumancek’s cozy living-room, and slowly lowered to his knees, shoulders bowing. And the little empty trailer silently witnessed his desolate weeping. 

.................

Roman's hand was steady as he brought the joint to his mouth for the last draw. It was quiet now; the wails of grief long ceased. The forest had returned to its nighttime hum and the dry crackle of a Fall night when furtive creatures stole through the wood. There wind no longer howled mournfully in a cacophony of grief. The occasional rustle was hollow, and dead. The night air was as dry and chilled as his eyes.

He sat on the flimsy little steps in the trailer door, watching the shadows of the leaves and the lattice of branches as the bright harvest moon showed everything in sharp relief. Frost was forming on the edges of the leaves strewing the forest floor. It was getting colder. So would he. 

Winter was coming.


	2. Winter's Depth

“Yes but if you’d only allocate the funds-“

Roman’s eyes flicked up suddenly from where he was running his finger along the edge of a freshly sharpened letter opener, and the word seemed to somehow stick sideways in the speaker’s throat. The bespectacled little man with the imitation suit and comb-over cleared his throat nervously, sweat appearing on his trembling upper lip and his rather prominent adam’s apple bobbing up and down. 

“You’re very eager to tell me I should throw money at your bunch of thread-bare lab-coats on viagra. But you’ve been stuttering for a quarter hour and I haven’t heard one reason why I should.”

“But I have, sir. I-I have mentioned the oil crisis could be all but eliminated, the global impact on trade alone-“

“Politics. Not money. This office is for money. But I wouldn’t expect you to understand it. You’ve obviously never seen enough of it to get a decent suit.”

Roman leaned back in his chair, tipping it back a little, spinning the tip of the glinting letter opener against the end of one long finger, his heavy-lidded eyes regarding the other man with icy detachment, like some creature of the inky depths considering its prey. The representative shifted nervously, switching the manila file from one arm to the other. 

“I suppose there’s something I can do,” Roman said. The man lit up, only to have his hopeful expression morph to horror at his next words. “The most money anyone like you or your colleagues will ever see is a life insurance policy cashed in. I could arrange something like that…of course, you wouldn’t be around to see the benefits, but I’m sure your friends would appreciate it.”

Balding Man nearly choked on his own spastic throat, shuffling a few frenetic steps back and shaking his head. 

“You’ve made your point…I’ll be going-“

Roman’s eyes were fixed on the pulsing vein just under the jaw of the beggar, pounding, rushing…he licked his lips subconsciously, tongue darting across and leaving a glistening trail. The tip of the letter-opener dug into the wood of the desk with the strength Roman’s hand suddenly exerted, scarring the beautiful imported cherry surface. Slowly, slowly, he rose from his chair.

“The cause is not as important to you after all, huh? You won’t even consider?” his words held an edge of taunt, his voice quiet but very clear, his accent flavoring the edges a deeper shade. 

The man continued to back up, not watching where he was going, and stumbled into the tray and tumblers of whisky against the wall near the door. It shifted behind him, sending him down when his support rolled away, a stoppered bottle and several glasses shattering into crystaline fractures across the floor even as he hit it, amber liquid worth thousands spreading like art. A heavy tumbler landed across his forehead, splitting the skin over one eye with the heft of the blow. 

Roman’s advance didn’t change. Slow. Deliberate. A predator closing in, in no hurry. The man choked out a little half-sob and scrambled up, not heeding the blood on his hands from the glass-strewn floor, or dripping down his face. He staggered out the office door and ran down the hall as quickly as his crab-like gait would carry him. Roman let out a long breath, blinking once and stooping to pick up the tumbler, the rim of which carried a smear of the man’s blood. He held it up to the light. 

There was no danger. No one knew the power of the Godfreys like the scuttling leeches of lower research projects; not a word would be spoken of what passed in the office. No one would ask. 

His lips glistened in the light from the window. Wet not with desire, but hunger. Cold, hard, insatiable. The hollowness inside and the gnawing pangs of this bloodlust merged together. Both controlled, managed, utilized, but ever present. The tip of his tongue traced the edge of his teeth, tasting the air. Caressed the edge of the glass, felt the smooth rim…and tasted blood.

..........

It was too cold even for snow. The inch or so that had fallen in gentler temperatures was now sharp and hard, grinding under his feet against the frozen earth. Even the dead blades of grass stood like glass razors. The trees were tortured dead hands scraping the sky in a futile plead for relief. Roman’s heart was hard. And it felt strong. The depth of Winter had come. 

He walked the path to his sleek modern home; it fit his needs better than the sprawling mansion of his mother’s tyranny. Dark, stark lines. Sharp architecture. No give, no bend or fluidity. Hard, like him. Empty. No lights burned behind the windows; the single servant he’d employed to cook and clean had been thrown out in the cold the night before and she didn’t come back this morning. 

 

He went in, sank down on one of the low couches. He didn’t bother to turn on a light. The wind picked up outside, screaming as it hurled shards of ice against the windows as they fell from the heavens like Odin’s spears. He poured two fingers of heavy dark scotch and stared at it. Letha’s face appeared before him in the dark, her eyes soft and loving, making him turn his away angrily. 

“You didn’t give me a f***ing choice, Letha,” he murmured, draining the glass and pouring another to make it disappear just as quickly. His eyes were dry. He hadn’t shed a tear since that day in the Fall. “You and f***ing Peter. No f***ing choice, so don’t you look at me like that.” 

There was the sound of the storm’s fury outside for long moments. An hour passed. Or was it two? The darkness in the house was complete now, but the solitary young man didn’t move from his place. The tumbler of Scotch sported only a thin sheen of amber liquid in the bottom when Roman lifted the last glass, the sharpness gone from his dark eyes, showing the deadness in them. He hesitated a moment and then opened his mouth to slur gently, 

“To you, Letha.”

He tipped his head back to swallow the last drop and stood unsteadily, swaying a moment before he wandered off to find his cold bed. It was moments like these, when the heat of liquor softened his thoughts and slowed his sharp intellect while it warmed his body, when the chance of change seemed the most possible. But in the morning the thaw would have hardened, the false spring frosted over yet again. 

And the Roman of Winter was back.


	3. First Thaw

Stupid machine. 

Red twisted metal, shattered glass, one headlight lying in the middle of the street, shredded tires, bent rims. What was once a beautiful Jaguar now a crunched and jagged mess. Roman brought a hand to his forehead and touched the rivulet of blood issuing from it with one long, slender, pale finger. The orange lights from the tow-truck flashed across his face every few seconds as the wreckage was dragged onto the back to be taken off. 

He leaned heavily against the tree responsible for destroying the antique car. His back pressed to the bark in order to hide his unsteady sway, the smell of liquor heavy on his breath even while his heavy lidded eyes didn’t fully disguise the blown pupils evidencing his cocaine high. He lit a cigarette and took a long draw as the mustached tow-man brought him a clipboard with papers to sign. 

“I’ll take her in for the boys to look at, Mr. Godfrey, but it looks pretty rough. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had to just about rebuild her, but they can fix her up. It’s a mercy that crash didn’t total you, too.”

“F***ing miracle,” Roman murmured, taking the clipboard and barely sparing a disinterested glance at the pink and yellow slips. “What’s this garbage?”

“Just signing off on the repairs we’ll do, sir. Won’t have to bother you every day or two with new quotes and such.”

Roman slapped the clipboard back into the man’s chest. 

“Scrap it.”

“‘Scuse me, sir?”

“I said, scrap the d*** thing. Sign whatever shreds of paper you have to, and scrap the car. I don’t want to see it again.”  
The fellow took off his cap and scratched the back of his neck with the bill, his mouth pulled to one side as he tore a receipt for tow services from the bottom of a sheet and handed it to Roman, shaking his head a little as he did so. Clearly he thought it was a waste of the vintage machine. 

The balls on that guy. Not even his f****** car. 

The prince of Hemlock barely spared a second glance as he crushed the receipt in his hand and tossed it flippantly back in the towman’s face, along with a jet of exhaled smoke on the frigid air. 

“My people will contact you. Have a nice night, and screw you very much.”

The thin stretch of Roman’s skeleton-grin of mockery barely had time to chill the heart of the heavy blue-collar before his pale, nervous fingers were adjusting the scarf about his neck, sparkling with glass shards as he turned away, long legs carrying him away into the dark toward the Godfrey House, a slenderman fading into the night. 

\---------------

“Kid’s a vampire...just rubs me the wrong way,” the mechanic murmured to himself, rubbing oil-stained hands on a blackened rag as he watched the Godfrey heir slink into the salvage yard. Clancy’s Wreck and Repair also was known to collect and restore gems like old Jaguars, so the twisted ruin of Roman’s roadster had definitely not been scrapped. 

It lay in the back lot with several other vintage relics, waiting patiently to get the attention of a mechanic on their lunch break or after hours to return them to their former glory and road-worthiness. Several had already been completed, and sat gleaming ready for buyers. It was toward these Roman wandered, eyes hooded and uninterested, thin cheeks hollowed with the draw on his fresh cigarette.

His own bright cherry red paint-job caught his bored gaze, holding it a second longer when he spotted a twisting spire of smoke slithering from behind the raised, crumpled hood. A second later the owner of the menthol cigarette stepped into view. The half-closed deadpan didn’t change on the surface, but underneath, Roman’s eyes sharpened and focused, traveling up and down. 

“She’s a mess!” the girl was saying, speaking to him as if he’d been part of a conversation that had never been begun. “Engine block’s trashed. But there’s good bones there, and she’ll be a lady when she’s done. You’ll see. This one’s not ready to be put to bed.” 

The bright, almond shaped eyes scanned the wreckage once more, sparkling with ideas and vision before shooting a sly, playful wink at the spectre watching her. The smoke puffed merrily from her light like a steam-engine cloud, lively and teasing. Roman’s eyes finally met hers for a moment. Dark and detached still, holding this girl at arm’s length, regarding her at a distance. But now he undoubtedly saw her. He was looking. 

“You going to fix her?” he asked, his accent heavy on the last r. He nodded his head toward the car. His own car. 

“Hell yeah. Some rich boy thought he could love her and leave her, but shows what he knows.” Her jaunty speech caused him to cock his eye at her, studying. It was impossible to tell whether she was playing with him or not. His stare was met with a wide impish smile before she stomped her smoke out in the gravel and ran her fingers -laden with mismatched gold rings on nearly every finger- through her windswept pixie cut, the green dye at the tips just barely catching the pale rays of February sun. 

“I’ll buy her. When you’re done. In the meantime I’ll take that.” 

He nodded to a black street 750 motorcycle sitting with the restorations. The girl’s eyebrows raised. One was notched or slit as if with a scar. 

“Just like that, huh? Alright then, pretty boy. I’ll bite. How much?”

Roman didn’t dignify the question with a response. He simply drew a checkbook out of his jacket and scribbled a sum before handing it to her without a second glance, already heading toward the bike. She snorted in indignant amusement, looking down at the check in her hand. 

“Ho-ly shee-it,” she drawled, a slow smile spreading across her face. Her eyes had a new glint in them when she looked back up to see him mounting the bike he’d just paid triple for and backing it up. It wasn’t greed. It was recognition. But Roman didn’t glance back to see it as he left in a spray of gravel without another word. 

He didn’t know why he’d done it. 

Maybe he just wanted to believe, wanted to see if something, anything broken could be fixed. 

He’d wait. 

He’d watch. 

He’d find out.


End file.
